Musicians with Arizona ties, from Stevie Nicks to Alice Cooper
Here are 12 of the biggest music celebrities who are Arizona natives or who have lived here, including Wayne Newton, Tanya Tucker and John Denver.
The Republic
- Timmy Stamper, owner of Tracks in Wax, wants to sell the business after nearly 10 years of ownership.
- Stamper bought the store from the widow of the original owner to prevent its closure and preserve its legacy.
- Stamper is looking to pursue other creative interests, particularly music.
Timmy Stamper isn’t selling Tracks in Wax because the business isn’t doing well. It’s just that he’s been feeling like it might be time to see what else this world has to offer.
It’s been nearly 10 years since Stamper purchased Tracks in Wax, a record store at 4741 N. Central Ave., just south of Camelback Road in Phoenix, from Julie Chiesa, the widow of Dennis Chiesa, who opened the business with his brother Don in 1982.
By the time he bought it, Stamper had been working there for nearly 10 years.
“There’s a lot of things that since I’ve had the store, I’ve put on hold: playing in bands, making records, vacationing, that sort of thing,” he says.
“I don’t have employees, so it’s just a matter of hitting the wall and getting burnt out on being a stool jockey. It just becomes a grind after a while, like any job. And when you get burnt out, it’s time for something else.”
He’s especially interested in getting back to music, having played guitar for more than 40 years.
“When you run a business, you have a lot of priorities that take away from creativity,” he says. “Once you’ve gotten through the things you have to do all day, you’re spent.”
Tracks in Wax owner bought the record store to keep it open
Owning a record store was never something Stamper dreamed of doing, to be honest.
“I was really great friends with the brothers that opened the store and doing business there as a customer before I started helping out,” he says.
“There just always seemed to be a certain magic to that space, some sort of energy that’s really special. I don’t know how to explain it other than that. You know, a place could be haunted or something. I’m not saying it’s haunted. But when the time came for the widow to sell, I didn’t want to see the store closed.”
It was Julie Chiesa’s idea for Stamper to buy the store after telling him she planned to either sell the store or shut it down. By that time, both brothers had died and Julie Chiesa was running the store with Stamper’s help.
“I said, ‘Oh, no, don’t close the store,’” he recalls. “She said, ‘Well, maybe you might want to buy it.’ I said, ‘Hell no.'”
Stamper laughs.
“But then I really thought about it,” he says.
“And I’m like, ‘Well, she’s gonna close the store, and I don’t want to see this place close. There’s too many memories, too many people here in Arizona that remember that place as a kind of historical landmark.
“As I really started thinking about it and rattling the idea around in my brain for a week or so, I decided, ‘Oh, let’s do it.’ And I jumped into it just like you jump into the water off of a big cliff.”
Stamper laughs and then adds, “It was never a goal of mine to do something like that. It just happened by chance, and it worked out great. And it has worked out great for a real long time.”
The resurgence of vinyl has been great for Tracks in Wax
The resurgence of vinyl has been great for business.
“Young kids at school, their friend gets a record player,” Stamper says. “They say, ‘Oh, this is great. I got these records.’ And the friend says, ‘What are records?’
“So they go to their friend’s house and they learn what records are, because records are an old media format that we used to do back in the ’50s, ’60s, ’70s and ’80s, and then it was all gone for a long time, other than what had been left over, the remnants of the record world.”
Business is good, Stamper says.
“But it’s always been good, except for during the pandemic shutdown. That was brutal. I don’t sell online. I don’t ship records in the mail. It’s all in-store sales, and I’ve been fine going on 10 years now.”
A new owner for Tracks in Wax would have to be a good fit
Stamper doesn’t plan to sell the business to just anyone.
“If somebody was really interested, and I didn’t feel they were a right fit for the store, or they might not have the means to really keep it going, I would tell them, ‘Hey, I don’t think that you’re right for the gig,’” he says.
“I know a lot of people have a dream of doing a record store, but you’ve got to know what you’re doing. You’ve got to be savvy enough to know what’s gonna move and what’s not gonna move. Unless somebody says, ‘I’ve got plenty of money, and this is my dream. I’d love to do it. Money’s not an option.’”
Stamper laughs before adding, “Then I would go, ‘OK, it’s perfect for you.’”
And if he doesn’t find a good fit?
“I’m gonna continue to ride the wave until I just get sick of doing it,” he says. “It’s not a situation where I’m out of money, or I’m going broke, none of that miserable nonsense. It’s just the fact that I’m tired of being a stool jockey sitting there behind the counter. I’d rather go to Sedona for the afternoon. Or California. There’s a lot of things. Creative things.”
He does hope he finds a good fit, though.
“It would be nice,” Stamper says. “It would give me the opportunity to do something else and it would give somebody else the opportunity to own the store and take it for another roll. Then, I could go there as a customer and see what’s come in and buy records.”
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Ed has covered pop music for The Republic since 2007, reviewing festivals and concerts, interviewing legends, covering the local scene and more. He did the same in Pittsburgh for more than a decade. Follow him on X and Instagram @edmasley and on Facebook as Ed Masley. Email him at ed.masley@arizonarepublic.com.